Jennifer Milioto Matsue, professor of music, anthropology and East Asian studies, has been awarded a prestigious $35,000 fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies to complete a book about identity and meaning within contemporary Japan music scenes.
The year-long fellowship will fund her field research in Kansai, Japan, beginning in January.
“My project will compare traditional and popular music styles found today in Japan and offer new approaches to the study of identity and meaning in music,” Matsue said.
Specifically, her research will deal with how varied music scenes in Japan, generated by genres such as nagauta (a type of chamber music), trance-electronica or wadaiko (Japanese drumming) share similar ideological grounding, processes of identity building, and performance practices.
Matsue’s next book will build on her previous monograph, “Making Music in Japan’s Underground: The Tokyo Hardcore Scene,” published in 2008 by Routledge.
Before beginning her field work, Matsue will teach a Union term abroad in Osaka. She will return from her field study in August 2010 to complete the book and resume teaching in winter 2011.
The American Council of Learned Societies supports “major pieces of scholarly work” in the humanities and humanities-related social sciences. The council received 1,007 applications and awarded 57 fellowships to American scholars for 2010.